Akali Dal's rejected leadership should vacate space for new leadership in interest of Panth and Panjab

 

Revival of Shiromani Akali Dal difficult without major surgery despite reverting to Panth

Ground Zero

 

Jagtar Singh

 

It must be appreciated that the humiliating and crushing defeat in February 2022 Assembly election has failed to demoralise or dishearten Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal.

He is already on way to reinvigorate the party rank and file going by his address at the “Panthic Conference” on Baisakhi today at Takht Damdama Sahib, Talwandi Sabo in Bathinda district.

The ground for his speech was earlier prepared by Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee president Harjinder Singh Dhami who tried unconvincingly to revive the narrative of the Shiromani Akali Dal being synonymous with the Panth. He conveniently overlooked the fact that the Akali Dal, since 1997, has conveniently been stream-rolling the Panthic traditions, especially when in power.

Moreover, the party had opted for voluntary shift from Panth to Punjabiat at its 75^th anniversary conference at Moga in February 1996.

But then the presidents of this supposed to be the mini-Parliament of the Sikhs have not been the mass leaders like Jathedar Gurcharan Singh Tohra who was the last stalwart who headed this body. Of course, Dhami is trying to revive the same spirit in SGPC as he himself was associated with Tohra.

The basic issue here whether the Akali Dal can be recharged by just advancing the argument that the defeat was nothing unusual and that people fell to the misleading propaganda against the party by the opponents.

What must be realised that the Sikhs this time have not just defeated the Akali Dal but have rejected it in the present form and content.

Sukhbir Singh Badal today did not give  any hint that any major change would be introduced to revive the party.

The party needs major surgery, not just cosmetic face-lift.

The Bargari tragedy negates every value that an Akali Dal government should stand for.

Even when out of power, Faqr-e-Qaum Panth Rattan, 5-time chief minister and Shiromani Akali Dal patron had sharply attacked the Morcha that was launched on June 1, 2018 under the leadership of former MP Dhian Singh Mand seeking justice in all the cases associated with Bargari sacrilege tragedy, the narrative that has started on June 1, 2015 from Burj village near Bargari.

Sukhbir appointed two committees to go into the defeat but these committees include all those who had been part of the mismanagement over the years.

Both the Akal Takht and the SGPC as institutions stand dented over the years by vested political interests.

The Akali Dal just can’t be revived by counting on the likely weaknesses of the AAP government in the state.

It seems the leadership (Read House of Badals) is not prepared to accept the naked truth.

The leadership first must admit that blunders were committed over the years, both consciously and unconsciously, that led to the dilution of Panthic tone and tenor of the Shiromani Akali Dal. The party has been under single line of command since 1996.

The party is now virtually a group of families and some business interests controlling it that has nothing to do with Panth, Punjab and the people.

This is the party that for years was the voice of the Panth and Punjab and functioned as a completely democratic body. Sikh religion, after all, represented democratic ethos.

Interestingly, the SGPC recently installed portraits of martyrs Gurjit Singh and Krishan Bhagwan Singh in the Central Sikh Museum in the Darbar Sahib (Golden Temple) complex. Both of them were killed in police firing at Behbal Kalan while protesting against sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib at Bargari in October 2015. Punjab was then ruled by the Akali Dal government headed by Parkash Singh Badal.

If Gurjit Singh and Krishan Bhagwan Singh are martyrs, then it should also be brought on record as to which regime killed them. The inscription with these portraits should mention that they were martyred by the Akali Dal government headed by Panth Rattan Parkash Singh Badal for the posterity to know.

Merely installing their portraits in the museum would not serve any purpose as the  guilty too should be punished.

It is in this backdrop that the Akali Dal needs major surgery for revival.

However, no signal is available indicating that the present leadership is willing to learn and start the rectification process in the interests of the Panth and Punjab.

The present leadership needs to get aside to vacate space for new blood.

Nature has its own way of filling up the vacuum.